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Guarding Peace and Safety
00:14:29
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unidentified
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The flight replacement program got started by a good friend of mine who, a Navy vet, saw a flag at the office that needed to be replaced and said, wouldn't this be great if this is going to be something that we did for anyone? | |
| Comcast has always been a community-driven company. | ||
| This is one of those great examples of the way we're getting out there. | ||
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unidentified
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Comcast supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | |
| Next, Minnesota officials hold a briefing on demonstrations anticipated this weekend protesting the fatal shooting of Minneapolis resident Renee Goode by an ICE agent. | ||
| Good afternoon. | ||
| I'm Bob Jacobson, and I have the honor of serving as the Commissioner for the Department of Public Safety. | ||
| We are here today to let everyone see some of the agencies that are here and ready for this weekend as people prepare to exercise their First Amendment rights to peacefully protest. | ||
| We know that there are several scheduled events. | ||
| The people you see here represent just a few of the agencies that will be here to help protect public safety, so everyone has the right to express their views. | ||
| I'm appreciative of our state partners, including the Minnesota National Guard, State Patrol, Department of Natural Resources, Metro Transit, and the University of Minnesota, who all stand ready to uphold public safety. | ||
| That also is true for our local law enforcement, emergency responders, and our dispatchers. | ||
| I know their commitment to our communities is unwavering. | ||
| We are also very thankful to the thousands, the thousands of our neighbors and fellow Minnesotans who have gone out and expressed themselves peacefully. | ||
| We recognize and understand the deep concern and grief they and so many in our community and across the country are still feeling following some recent events in our state. | ||
| We also know that demonstrations include strong emotions, beliefs, and desires to be heard. | ||
| And it is critical that those voices are expressed safely so that they can be heard. | ||
| Make no doubt public safety is our top priority. | ||
| Our focus is keeping demonstrators, community members, drivers, our law enforcement officers safe, especially during moments of heightened tension or uncertainty. | ||
| While peaceful expression is protected, any actions that harm people, destroy property, or jeopardize public safety will not be tolerated. | ||
| Demonstrations must remain safe and they must remain lawful. | ||
| We are coordinating with our local law enforcement partners to ensure resources are adequately deployed. | ||
| As such, just as was the case last weekend, the Minnesota National Guard has staged in a way such that they can respond quickly if needed. | ||
| Again, just as was the case last weekend, it is our hope that they won't be needed. | ||
| We are optimistic that that will be the case. | ||
| But again, any acts of violence, damage to property, threats to safety will be met with lawful enforcement actions, including arrests, as we have already done in coordination with our partner agencies. | ||
| For those planning to attend those demonstrations this weekend, we encourage you, please stay informed, follow directions from law enforcement, please avoid confrontations, and help keep the focus on peaceful expression. | ||
| And we remain committed to listening to our community concerns and continuing dialogue around trust, safety, and accountability. | ||
| With that, I will turn it over to National Guard Major General Mankey. | ||
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unidentified
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Hey, thanks, Commissioner. | |
| Hey, good afternoon. | ||
| I'm Major General Mankey. | ||
| I'm the Adjutant General of the Minnesota National Guard. | ||
| I have the distinct pleasure of commanding and serving alongside nearly 13,000 soldiers and airmen of your Minnesota National Guard who come from more than 800 communities in the state of Minnesota. | ||
| I hope you know some of us. | ||
| They are your neighbors, your co-workers, your teachers, your construction workers, your first responders. | ||
| Many of us are students, but most importantly, we are Minnesotans. | ||
| We live here, we work here, and we serve here. | ||
| Today, under the direction of the governor, we are mobilizing elements of our National Guard to support local law enforcement and emergency management agencies to protect life and property and ensure the safety of Minnesota. | ||
| We are a planning organization that prioritizes partnerships. | ||
| Many of the partners you see up here today, we are partnered with, and we remain partnering with them and work with them through the planning process to ensure that we are always ready and always there. | ||
| With that, folks, we will take some questions. | ||
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unidentified
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As a reminder, as I had said earlier, please, as you introduce your first question, introduce yourself and the media organization you're with. | |
| That will open it up. | ||
| I would wonder if you'd like to ask, is there a specific plan to keep Cedar Riverside safe at this point? | ||
| Yeah, thank you for the question about keeping Cedar Riverside safe. | ||
| We have been continuing to work with our local law enforcement agencies, including the Minneapolis Police Department, Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, and their partner agencies. | ||
| We also have, as you can see around us, state law enforcement agencies that are working with our local partners and are available. | ||
| We have done a significant amount of planning with those law enforcement agencies so that we are prepared in the event that anything happens that would be needed additional resources. | ||
| But that planning is being done. | ||
| We are confident that the city of Minneapolis and our teams have plans in place to help, again, keep the public safe, which is why we are all here today. | ||
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unidentified
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Will we see more uniforms on the ground in that neighborhood? | |
| I will say that the city of Minneapolis will have certainly a large complement of police officers. | ||
| Visibility is one piece of being available and ready to protect the peace and in that area. | ||
| What I would recommend and suggest that if people are concerned for safety to make sure and locate a police officer that may be available and needed, but we should have plenty of people that are out there. | ||
| Some will be visible, some will not, but we are prepared to address any safety issues that may come up. | ||
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unidentified
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Commissioner Connor White with WCCO, do you have any anticipation on the kinds of numbers that will be involved on the side of people coming in to Cedar Riverside in that area tomorrow? | |
| Question was on the numbers of people that may be present in the Cedar Riverside area. | ||
| We don't have estimates right now that I would be able to give you on the number of people that are coming in. | ||
| What I would point out is that we have had demonstrations over the last week and a half that have occurred, some without necessarily any warning that they were going to occur. | ||
| So, what we have in place is our contingencies for no matter what the size of that crowd that may be available or may be present in the Cedar Riverside area. | ||
| We are confident that we have the staffing, the personnel available to do that. | ||
| And just as a note, you know, this is we are here also as a state resource. | ||
| If things may happen in another community, it may not be Minneapolis. | ||
| It could be someplace else. | ||
| We are prepared and ready to respond to support our local law enforcement agencies should they see a need. | ||
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unidentified
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This does seem to be the first time that there are two different planned protests where they would be at odds with one another and there's a possibility of clashes between civilians as opposed to what we have seen between civilians and various forms of law enforcement. | |
| Any nerves on your end about this mixture? | ||
| I'll bring it back to, again, our primary concern is the safety of everyone that will be present that day. | ||
| What I would again call on those who may decide to attend any demonstrations or gatherings in the city of Minneapolis or anywhere, please remain calm, be peaceful, exercise your right to voice your opinions, but avoid confrontations, violence, or any property damage. | ||
| We know that there may be several people that are there, but I'm counting on Minnesotans. | ||
| I'm counting on those who are going to be in attendance at those locations to keep the peace, to show others that Minnesota is a safe place where people can demonstrate, can share their opinions and their voices without having any violence. | ||
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unidentified
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Did you get any message to the folks who live in that neighborhood to people who might not be involved in these two events today? | |
| What I will say is that as a father and a grandfather, I have five children, all married. | ||
| I have 11 grandchildren. | ||
| One of my sons lives in the city of Minneapolis along with his wife. | ||
| Whether it be in the city of Minneapolis, whether it be anywhere else across the state of Minnesota, our pledge is to make sure that we are doing everything we possibly can to work with your local law enforcement agencies, public safety agencies, to keep everyone safe. | ||
| That is our mandate. | ||
| That is our mission at the Department of Public Safety and along with our other agencies that are here today. | ||
| For those that are in the Cedar Riverside area, again, I would just ask for peaceful demonstrations. | ||
| If you see something that you think is dangerous, certainly report that. | ||
| But we will have, again, a good footprint of staff that will be available in that area, and we're just calling for peace because it is important to all of us up here as we are working together to support Minnesotans and their ability to exercise their First Amendment rights. | ||
| We want to be there to be helpful. | ||
| We want to be there to keep the peace. | ||
| And again, let's be Minnesotans. | ||
| Let's be those who want to do this the right way to demonstrate, to share your opinions, to share your values, to share your thoughts, but to do it in a way that doesn't incite violence, that doesn't bring any more harm. | ||
| And we have seen enough of that. | ||
| I don't want to see any more. | ||
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unidentified
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I don't have to ask the major general question if that would be okay. | |
| Sure. | ||
| Just activated, does that mean we're going to see National Guard personnel on the ground in that neighborhood? | ||
| Yeah, hey, so thanks for the question. | ||
| You know, I don't know if you'll see National Guard in the neighborhoods or not. | ||
| I guess it's going to depend on what the needs are. | ||
| We are a support element to local law enforcement as well as the state. | ||
| And routinely and thankfully, we use state resources and other local law enforcement resources first. | ||
| So I can't tell you if you will or not. | ||
| I will tell you that our soldiers have gone through a bunch of training and they are ready and they will be there if needed. | ||
| Is this standby? | ||
| I'm sorry, I just want to be clear. | ||
| So they're on like a standby right now? | ||
| Yeah, they're mobilized and they're brought in and they're operating out of various locations so that they are prepared, ready to go. | ||
| So, you know, they are not at home. | ||
| They're at a location so their response time could be quicker than if it was a cold call if they were at home. | ||
| So has status activation actually changed since the last time we heard Governor Walton? | ||
| It has not, and the executive order was written. | ||
| We have the latitude to do this for a while. | ||
| So our status hasn't changed. | ||
| Like I said, we have soldiers on. | ||
| Now we can bring soldiers to a higher state of readiness, a higher threshold of response to reduce the risk if needed. | ||
| And then we can send soldiers home and reduce that rate of response if needed, all in conjunction with the Commissioner of Public Safety and our local law enforcement agencies. | ||
| I can take one more general point from item 1011 here. | ||
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unidentified
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Do you have any comment on President Trump's potential invoking the Insurrection Act and just hear about that? | |
| Yeah. | ||
| I don't really have a comment on that. | ||
| Obviously, we're monitoring the situation. | ||
| You know, we're trying to keep the calm here in Minnesota with the resources that we have. | ||
| And, you know, we serve in two functions. | ||
| We serve in a Title 32 capacity where the governor is the commander-in-chief, and that's what we're doing here today. | ||
| We also serve in a capacity in a Title X where the President is a commander-in-chief. | ||
| And we routinely serve in both of those capacities all the time. | ||
| As a matter of fact, we have hundreds of service members deployed right now, not in Minnesota, in a Title X capacity. | ||
| And if we're ordered to do something and it's a lawful order, we will do those to the best of our ability. | ||
| I'd like to ask the Commissioner one last quick question. | ||
| I'm sorry, this is about earlier in the week. | ||
| On Wednesday, we saw the DCA at the scene of that shooting situation. | ||
| I'm wondering if you're aware of BCA is going to be able to take part in that investigation, unlike the earlier one the week before. | ||
| So this is a question regarding the shooting from Wednesday. | ||
| Our force investigation unit from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is doing that investigation. | ||
| And as their usual protocol, they'll be getting out some information in the next few days on that and that incident. | ||
| I don't have anything else to share, but as Minnesotans know, the BCA has a force investigation unit where their primary work is to investigate officer-involved shootings. | ||
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Commemorating MLK Day
00:01:30
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| They are very good at what they do. | ||
| They are very professional. | ||
| They have a process and a protocol that they will follow, and they're following that process and protocol in this incident. | ||
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unidentified
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Is there anything you mentioned that the folks have to say? | |
| Thank you, guys. | ||
| Yep, thank you. | ||
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unidentified
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Watch C-SPAN 2 as we present all-day programming commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. Day. | |
| Beginning at 8 a.m. Eastern, journalist Jonathan Ike, author of the biography King Alive, discusses the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. | ||
| It's the first comprehensive biography of the civil rights leader in more than 30 years. | ||
| Then, at 10:25 a.m. Eastern, the July 1963 interview of Martin Luther King Jr. by four international and domestic journalists for Press Conference USA, a U.S. information agency series that was distributed internationally. | ||
| At 5.10 p.m., Boise State History Professor Jill Gill on Martin Luther King Jr.'s political strategies in the civil rights movement up to his assassination in 1968. | ||
| And later, at 8 p.m. Eastern, Reginald Duane Betts talks about reading Dr. King's Letter from Birmingham Jail while he was in jail and the impact it had on his life since his release, including his founding of the organization Freedom Reads that builds libraries in prisons. | ||